Fredric Brown

Crag is a rogue human, a criminal on the run. When he is set up for transporting a dangerous drug, his judge, Olliver, offers him a deal: go into the psyched and have his memory wiped, or become Olliver's partner in crime, and venture to Mars to steal a dangerous weapon. Of course, not all is what it seems, though it's not far off, and mostly the book telegraphs what's going to happen, right down to the end.

Twelve short crime novels: Leslie Charteris - The Lawless Lady Mignon Eberhart - Introducing Susan Dare Cornell Woolrich - Nightmare John D. MacDonald - Death's Eye View Hugh Pentecost - The Murder Machine Erle Stanley Gardner - Death Rides a Boxcar Ross Macdonald - The Bearded Lady Fredric Brown - Murder Set to Music Rex Stout - The Zero Clue Ed McBain - Storm Daphne du Maurier - Don't Look Now Bill Pronzini - Booktaker

Dictionaries - essay by Isaac Asimov Too Soon to Die - novelette by Tom Godwin A Museum Piece - short story by Roger Zelazny Why Johnny Can't Speed - short story by Alan Dean Foster Man in a Quandary - short story by Joseph Wesley [as by L. J. Stecher, Jr.] The Cabbage Patch - short story by Theodore R. Cogswell A Touch of Grapefruit - short story by Richard Matheson Answer - short story by Fredric Brown A Gun for Dinosaur - novelette by L. Sprague de Camp A Pail of Air - short story by Fritz Leiber The Odor of Thought - short story by Robert Sheckley The Last Monster - short story by Poul Anderson (variant of Terminal Quest) History Lesson - short story by Arthur C. Clarke The Troublemaker - short story by Christopher Anvil The Game of Rat and Dragon - short story by Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger [as by Cordwainer Smith] Let's Be Frank - short story by Brian W. Aldiss The Easy Way Out - short story by G. Harry Stine [as by Lee Correy] All Cats Are Gray - short story by Andre Norton The Man from Earth - short story by Gordon R. Dickson Dream Damsel - short story by Evan Hunter The Underdweller - short story by William F. Nolan (variant of Small World) Top Secret - short story by Eric Frank Russell One Love Have I - short story by Robert F. Young The Snowball Effect - short story by Katherine MacLean The Santa Claus Problem - short story by J. W. Schutz The Ship Who Sang - novelette by Anne McCaffrey No Harm Done - short story by Jack Sharkey There Will Come Soft Rains - short story by Ray Bradbury In the Jaws of Danger - short story by Piers Anthony In the Abyss - (1896) - short story by H. G. Wells Custer's Last Jump - novelette by Steven Utley and Howard Waldrop Game Preserve - short story by Rog Phillips Life Hutch - short story by Harlan Ellison The Silk and the Song - novelette by Charles L. Fontenay Down to the Worlds of Men - novelette by Alexei Panshin Robbie - short story by Isaac Asimov (variant of Strange Playfellow 1940) The Man with English - short story by H. L. Gold [as by Horace L. Gold] Transstar - novelette by Raymond E. Banks Open Warfare - novelette by James E. Gunn The Long Way Home - short story by Fred Saberhagen Skirmish on a Summer Morning - novella by Bob Shaw Gantlet - short story by Richard E. Peck Saucer of Loneliness - short story by Theodore Sturgeon (variant of A Saucer of Loneliness) The Mother of Necessity - short story by Chad Oliver The Great Secret - short story by George H. Smith The Draw - short story by Jerome Bixby For the Sake of Grace - novelette by Suzette Haden Elgin A Death in the House - novelette by Clifford D. Simak Creature of the Snows - short story by William Sambrot A Criminal Act - short story by Harry Harrison The Cage - short story by A. Bertram Chandler

Introduction - essay by Martin H. Greenberg Don't Look Now - short story by Henry Kuttner He Walked Around the Horses - novelette by H. Beam Piper The Strange Case of John Kingman - short story by Murray Leinster That Only a Mother - short story by Judith Merril The Monster - short story by A. E. van Vogt Dreams Are Sacred - novelette by Peter Phillips Mars Is Heaven! - short story by Ray Bradbury Thang - short story by Martin Gardner Brooklyn Project - short story by William Tenn Ring Around the Redhead - short story by John D. MacDonald Period Piece - short story by John R. Pierce [as by J. J. Coupling] Dormant - short story by A. E. van Vogt In Hiding - novelette by Wilmar H. Shiras Knock - short story by Fredric Brown A Child Is Crying - short story by John D. MacDonald Late Night Final - novelette by Eric Frank Russell

Home team advantage / Jack C. Haldeman II Three times around / Jane Roberts In the arena / Brian W. Aldiss Pattern / Frederic Brown

The Test - short story by Richard Matheson Anachron - short story by Damon Knight Black Charlie - short story by Gordon R. Dickson Down Among the Dead Men - novelette by William Tenn The Hunting Lodge - novelette by Randall Garrett The Lysenko Maze - short story by Donald A. Wollheim [as by David Grinnell] Fondly Fahrenheit - novelette by Alfred Bester The Cold Equations - novelette by Tom Godwin Letters from Laura - short story by Mildred Clingerman Transformer - short story by Chad Oliver The Music Master of Babylon - novelette by Edgar Pangborn The End of Summer - novelette by Algis Budrys The Father-Thing - short story by Philip K. Dick The Deep Range - short story by Arthur C. Clarke Balaam - short story by Anthony Boucher Man of Parts - short story by H. L. Gold Answer - short story by Fredric Brown

Each story preceded by 1 paragraph of commentary.

Prototaph - short story by Keith Laumer A Bad Day for Sales - short story by Fritz Leiber Answer - short story by Fredric Brown Road Stop - short story by David Mason The Nine Billion Names of God - short story by Arthur C. Clarke

Tales of Horror, Mysteries of the Sea, Science Fiction & Magic

"The Cave" by P. Schuyler Miller "The Halfling" by Leigh Brackett "Mimsy Were the Borogoves" by Lewis Padgett (pseudonym of Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore) "Q.U.R." by Anthony Boucher "Clash by Night" by Lawrence O'Donnell "Exile" by Edmond Hamilton "Daymare" by Fredric Brown "Doorway into Time" by C. L. Moore "The Storm" by A. E. van Vogt "The Proud Robot" by Lewis Padgett (pseudonym of Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore) "Symbiotica" by Eric Frank Russell "The Iron Standard" by Lewis Padgett (pseudonym of Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore)

"Yes, I'm Max Andrews. I'm one of the guys who fought and bled and worked to get to Mars. I figure what I gave up in those early years bought me the right to pilot the next big jump. I've lied and stolen for that right. I'd have killed, too, but I didn't have to. Instead, I let a woman give her life so I could have my chance, my door to space. You think I'd stop at anything, now? I'll be on that rocket, blasting away on America's biggest adventure, the hop out into the stars themselves.."--Goodreads.com.

Dans un monde où la frontière entre la réalité et la fiction devient dangereusement floue, Fredric Brown, maître du suspense psychologique et de l'inattendu, nous entraîne dans un polar aussi vertigineux que fascinant. Un écrivain de romans policiers en mal d’inspiration se retrouve mêlé à une affaire bien trop réelle : un meurtre sanglant qui semble tout droit sorti de l’un de ses manuscrits. Coïncidence troublante ou mise en scène machiavélique ? Tandis que les indices s’accumulent, la tension monte, et chaque page révèle une nouvelle couche de mystère. Avec son style incisif, ses dialogues mordants et son sens inégalé du twist final, Brown signe ici un chef-d'œuvre à double lecture, où chaque mot compte et où l’ombre du crime plane jusque dans les marges. Un roman noir envoûtant, à lire d’une traite – jusqu’à la dernière ligne, qui pourrait bien tout changer.

Fredric Brown's The Fabulous Clipjoint comes from a now-vanished world of crime fiction that once satisfied the same appetites in the audience that are now fed by television programming. Neatly crafted and loaded with atmosphere and humor, The Fabulous Clipjoint, published in 1947, follows the exploits of an unlikely pair of amateur sleuths -- a teenaged boy and his uncle, who follows the carnival -- in solving a disturbing murder.The victim is a drunk, who seems to have gotten rolled and winds up lying dead in an alley. A cop discovers the body, and a routine inquiry turns up nothing more than sad and pitiful evidence -- another blasted life that ends in another random murder. But the victim has a son, 18-year-old Ed Hunter, who is not willing to let his father's death be dismissed so quickly. He has no one to help him, so he turns to the only person he can trust, his Uncle Ambrose, a carny he has not seen in years. Ambrose agrees to help Ed, and the two set out on a most unlikely murder investigation. It takes them down dark and abandoned Chicago streets, confronting a gallery of unsavory characters in the underworld, armed only with a crazy kind of courage and an ever-growing determination to discover the truth.The Fabulous Clipjoint was Fredric Brown's first full-length novel, though its assured skill comes from the author's experience in turning out hundreds of detective stories for magazines in the 1930s and 1940s. Ed and Ambrose are an couple of offbeat heroes, foolish enough to get themselves in extraordinary situations. Brown creates a rollicking world for them to explore, filled with vivid characters and plenty of danger -- a sleek, suspenseful read.